Are you interested in angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, influence, and how to protect against the unknown? If so, then welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. Hello all, and welcome back to season 4, episode 9 of Southern Demonology. As always, this is your friendly neighborhood, Ancient Demonologist JJ. Today I bring you something truly special. This is an interview that I have been looking forward to releasing for quite some time. You see, my Discord server for Southern Demonology is an amazing place.
And goodness knows it's not because I'm there. No. The reason why I value the community that has been built up is because of the amazing people that inhabit it, that truly formed the heart of it. And today I am bringing you an interview because of the existence of this Discord server, as I never would have met him otherwise. To my podcasting audience, I would like to introduce Dr. Bert. He is a medical doctor and psychiatrist from the Netherlands who has been actively practicing in the field for more than a decade. And he has done so on the forensic side, dealing with crimes.
You may have had the pleasure of hearing his very first English podcasting interview on trailer Trash Terrors. But he agreed to speak to us about several different items. Namely, I wanted his input on the movie Nefarious. How was the field of psychiatry represented in his professional opinion in that movie? But that was only the entrance to the doorway.
For in this conversation, we bounced from that to the old term of multiple personality disorder, or the more modern term of disassociative personality disorder, to the nature of evil, some of the cases that he has dealt with, which at least exhibit mortal evil. And finally, some of the more paranormal experiences that he has encountered. You may be wondering why are you talking to a psychiatrist when your podcast is mainly around demonology, academic subjects, and spiritual warfare? And the answer is pretty simple.
We have up to this point discussed mental illness as something to be eliminated as a possible explanation for behavior that could be confused for demonic possession. However, we have never really looked at that topic by itself. And as Father Burt's song is very famous for saying, you cannot cast out mental illness. And I think that phrase deserves a good bit of examination in and of itself. Now, I will say that at certain points in this interview, you may hear some background noises. When Dr.
Burt and I are speaking, there was currently a torrential rain happening in Amsterdam, and his plumbing system was not fully able to keep up with the task. So, it only happens a few times, but I did not want you to think that you were hearing someone flushing the toilet. It was rather because his seat was not fully able to take care of all the water that it was currently receiving. And lastly, as the holidays are right upon us and I have more work than I can possibly handle, I figured that I would release this episode not in my customary two parts, but rather as a complete episode.
Because A, I didn't have the time to divide it, but more importantly, consider this an early gift from me to you. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Dr. Burt. Hello all. This is JJ, and you are joining us on Southern Demonology yet again. And today I have a very special guest, someone who is absolutely not from the U.S., which is a nice rarity for me.
He has been a member of our Discord server for quite some time, uh, one of the most active participants that we have, and is a mental health professional, which we have talked about mental health, especially in terms of rolling it out as a possible cause for demonic possession. And it will be fantastic to get a actual seasoned and educated individual's response to a lot of these types of questions. So, Mr. Bert, would you mind introducing yourself?
Uh thank you, D JJ, for your introduction. Well, I'm Bert. I've been for 10 years now been a psychiatrist in the Netherlands. The first seven years I've mainly worked in a forensic uh psychiatric hospital, and afterwards I've had some different experiences uh both with acute psychiatric health care and also with addiction.
Wow. That does not sound like an easy type of position to hold. I will never ask about individual patients because I want to respect everyone's privacy, nor do I want to put you in any kind of a compromising situation. But what are some of I mean I know that you describe kind of the general symptoms that you can treat, but what are some of the like real world situations that you have that you have been able to witness as part of your duties?
Well, it's uh it's a very broad uh broad spectrum of uh mental illnesses from uh from uh different kinds of addictions to people with uh severe depressions, uh psychosis, uh but also uh people suffering from uh PTSD and uh some personality disorders, for example, uh in a therapeutic uh uh environment.
Gotcha. And how did you find yourself in this field? What drew you to it?
Well, I think uh the most important thing is is uh to have this contact with the people, to hear their stories and to help them in their lives. I think the the most intimate is the mind. It's it's your private space. And if that is because of a mental illness disturbed, it puts a lot of uh suffering to to the patient. So and to help lighten that burden, well that that that's something that drew drew me to it.
And what type of uh education did you require in order to enter into this field?
Well, I have uh first you have to become a doctor, so a medical degree, and afterwards uh you have a specialization for about four and a half years to become a psychiatrist.
Wow, that is intense. Let me ask you, so you you began listening to the podcast and joined our Discord server. What was the reason behind that?
I have a a broad interest in in in in history and all kinds of things, so I was really looking for for some something with history and stories in it, and I came across southern demonology, so I wasn't looking to to summon demons or something, or uh I hope no one does. And I like to read sometimes I like to read uh Stephen King's, and well, there's a a lot of uh supernatural in there as well. So I thought, well, I'm I'm going to give this a a try.
And it was only a half-hour drive, so I looked for an episode which which took uh about a half hour, and it was it was the uh episode in which you told us about your experience in Japan. About the dream you had. And I it was it was night and I was driving at home, and and you were telling it in such a way that I got shivers all over my body. Oh and and after that I I just started at the beginning, and uh I think well this this man knows a lot about history, about languages, about other cultures, so that made me stay. You reeled me in.
That tickles my heart to death. One of the things that in preparation for this interview was I had asked you if you would be able to watch the movie Nefarious. Were you able to actually do that?
Yeah, uh I I did. It was a it was a little bit complicated because it isn't streamed in the Netherlands. So I had to do uh some VPN uh trick and detour, and uh but finally managed to to see it. Fortunately.
I apologize for having to make you jump through those hoops.
Oh no, no, no problem at all.
I I very much enjoyed the movie and my wife as well. Oh good. So yeah, so you did enjoy the movie, but I really want to know from your perspective, what did you think of how they presented the field of psychiatry in that film?
Well, I was I was pleasantly uh surprised because in in a lot of films uh psychiatrist is a bit of a bit of a caricature. This old man with with uh with a beard and uh and such and a pipe. Yeah. Or or a psychiatrist uh that is also a bit unhinged himself, but but how it started and how he presented it was very uh recognizable. Yes.
I've discussed the movie a good bit. So there is you know a f uh synopsis in the very final episode of season three, and then at least as of this recording, you haven't heard kind of a an analysis that Father Birdsong and I had done on this film together. One of the things that really bothered me about the film is that the psychiatrist comes into the jail cell very much full of himself and thinking that he knows exactly how the world works, but yet in such a short order, he collapses.
Like his worldview is completely changed, and rather than being the dominant force in the room, he becomes the subservient force in the room. And it was meant, I think that the movie was trying to show more character development, but it skipped all of that and just went from I'm at the top of the world to oh gosh, I'm a lowly bug and I know nothing. I was really wanting to get kind of your take onto that.
Yeah, well, I think it is the development, it goes to too swift for my opinion. To my opinion, because what you say I agree with. You you expected more of a slower erosion of the personality, uh of his confidence. And if I recall it collect uh correctly, it was at the moment that that uh he found he found the book that he the notebook in which uh his entire past was written. That was a part that was not that believable, I think. Also to me he was uh he was also a bit of uh tempted, of course he was tempted by the demon to at one point to well let me enter.
Uh and and yes, I'll let you enter me out of my free will. He was playing along with with his patients, so to speak. And that's also something I think I I would I would never do.
Yeah, that's one thing I really wanted to get your take on this. Let's say that you were ever placed into a similar situation where you're possibly dealing with a patient who has delusions, and maybe that is combined with I know it's the outdated term for it, and I don't know the I can't think of the modern one, so you have to forgive me. Multiple personality disorder. How would you go about approaching such an individual?
Well, first of all, I think I would really have to take my time. If that is in my differential diagnosis, that that someone has this associative identity disorder, you really have to take your time. But you also have to uh you have to have a biography of what what is this for a person, how did he develop, what what's his background, uh and uh is it a logical story, is it a logical development? Can you uh can you understand why he does certain things? Uh and also if there is this uh dissociative identities disorder, you should be uh be very uh precise in this.
And the way he was he was placed in an in a situation in which he had to uh finish his interview within a few hours and and only he had only time for uh an assessment of one conversation, actually. And I would not like to be in such a situation that I'm really under such a pressure.
Oh, I couldn't imagine.
And also to to a few hours before the execution, it's it's also for a patient. I think it's too late for for a a fair assessment.
Gotcha. Yeah. Typically, I mean, uh how long would it take in order to come to an adequate assessment for such a condition? I know that there's no set amount of time, but uh I'm just curious. I mean, would it require hours upon hours of conversation in order to dig down?
It doesn't have to be hours and hours. It depends. But I think you really should take your time also with with the background, also with the biography, also with asking a relative, father or mother, or or a sibling about about the patient to make sure you have you you look at it at different angles.
And most of of the persons who have uh a dissociative identity disorder can have uh a history of trauma, often in in childhood, and trauma can be abroad, it can be also uh from abuse, uh physical abuse, but also uh traumatic uh hospital experiences uh when they had uh a severe illness, for example. So there are different uh can be different causes.
Because that does seem to be the root of what causes that, right? The individual is unable to process whatever event sparked the disassociative personality disorder, and so it's a coping mechanism. Is that exactly, exactly?
It creates the a person creates the different aspects of themselves, and and they these different aspects can be uh extremely different. Um there can be an aspect that is um a female while the person itself is a male, for example. So there is uh a very broad uh spectrum in in differences.
Wow, okay. I think that that's one of the other things that really kind of fascinates me in that you deal with uh the mind on a day in, day out basis, and you're working with a constructed reality that your patients have. How how generally do you go about attempting to reconcile their constructed reality with normalized constructed reality, I guess you could say.
Well, it's the story of or the narrative of the patient and from that narrative you have to distill your your own narrative in how in order how to help a patient. And of course be because I think the basis of giving mental health is is having a a a trust. Yeah, uh you you would like to uh your patient trust you. Um and that is sometimes uh can be a bit difficult, certainly if if someone is a bit paranoid and uh thinks he's being uh prosecuted or being haunted hunted by uh some some agency.
But I would never play uh I would not uh play a game with uh with with a patient or or pretend towards the patient. Or if a patient hears voices and I don't hear them, I wouldn't say, well, yes, I hear those voices as well, or but I won't argue with them as there are no voices, because the person hears these voices as clearly as I can hear you. So that is the reality of of the person in front of me. He hears the voices or he sees things that I cannot see, but uh he is in suffering or she she suffers under these these experiences.
And uh I'm trying to help uh such a person from from my uh profession from what I've learned with with therapy or with medication or uh sometimes uh looking at the environment where a person lives and and perhaps changes can be made there.
Yeah, because I mean if you did play into believing that you know you hear voices or whatever type of symptom that they may be suffering from, that seems like a really fantastic way to break trust. Exactly. And they could exact start asking you, or what did they say, or you know, what happened, and then you would have no idea how to respond to it.
Yeah. So you have to create this safe uh environment, a safe space. And by doing it is is listening to the patient and of course acknowledging that they have these complaints. Some patients are can be pretty uh confused or or delusional.
And you're not helping someone by adding oil to the fire or by trying to to get your rights it's it is not it's not a match that that makes total sense have you had to work with individuals who did have dissociative personality disorder no I have I haven't I haven't I because that's pretty rare overall correct well I've I've looked it up as preparation also for this this because I'm I read about one and a half percent or two percent how do you say it uh uh prevalence so it is not that uncommon only in the settings where I have worked uh so in the acute I see I've seen a lot of people with with schizophrenia and in in the forensic I've seen as well people with schizophrenia with with personality disorders but none are diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and that might be because they weren't there or also it might be that we do not rec haven't recognized it as being this disorder.
And that brings me and I know this may be a bit of an uncomfortable question and that's not my intent in your experience have you ever dealt with a patient or a situation that you were unsure whether the modern definitions of psychiatry psychology whatever it may be could not adequately explain.
Well perhaps one one step back you know the DSM that's our diagnostic and statistical manual.
I have it I have it here it's very fat it has more pages than than the last uh version this is uh version number five and it's full of diagnosis or classifications and the class these classifications you can classify by by looking at behavior we don't have an x-ray or we don't we we don't have any way uh yet to to see what is really going on in the mind right so we have to look at the behavior and what what a person tells us and then we go and see what matches best and I've seen strange behavior but it will be there will also be it it can also be classified or it can be it fall it can fall under a classification which it doesn't mean because what we're dealing with also in the DSM the classification it's a classification it's not like how to explain this if you have a broken leg you're you you have you can make a picture and you see well that that's clearly a broken uh leg on the X-ray you see the bone a classification is is a sort of construct for example ADHD yeah someone has an attention deficit uh with hyperactivity so you see these uh these symptoms and then you label it as being or classified as being ADHD uh which uh you have to take care that it is also uh we make this classification it is not a thing uh I don't I don't know the English word but uh you have to be you have to take care not to r reificate it to to make it a thing so perhaps a bit a bit complex how I'm trying to explain it.
No no I mean that that makes total sense you don't want to introduce new things which may not have been there in the first place.
The reason why I I asked this is because there are there's one kind of Hollywood trope I guess you could say that exists it when it comes to people in the mental health field who are dealing with anything possibly paranormal and it is is that there are obvious signs that something cannot be explained but yet they will latch on to you know whatever possible diagnosis which may kind of sweep it away so there's that side of it but then and this is completely an uneducated viewpoint so you have to forgive me for that but when going through school myself there would be quite some conversations around I wonder how many people are currently in mental health facilities which are suffering from possible demonic influence and these two questions always kind of seem to run in the back of my head and of course I have zero education in this front so I am not qualified to go from either direction but now that I have someone who obviously is that that's why I wanted to broach that kind of a question.
Yeah well I think there are of course there have been patients that did not react to medication and they were severely ill with with they had a s diagnosis of schizophrenia for example they were very very much suffering with I can remember a man who who wasn't able to to get to the normal ward but had to be kept in isolation the entire time and because he experienced and every night that when he slept or when he fell asleep he experienced uh being being sexual abused by by groups of men entering his his room and in order to prevent that he was deviling himself to make himself as as repulsive as as possible and oh gosh and they tried everything uh medication but also electric therapy and nothing worked and was this man possessed I don't know because I that's not where my authority lies right but he was he was in great great pain and uh suffering and and that is something I see now and then not in this this was a very extreme example uh one of the most extreme examples I've seen but it is they use the feeling of of powerlessness as in such a situation as a healthcare someone in healthcare is is very difficult to cope with.
I couldn't even begin to imagine.
And and let me say I'm I'm I'm pretty well lucky or well I'm I'm a psychiatrist so I'm not doing this daily cleaning daily trying to to wash this person or trying to that was the task of the sociotherapy of of nurses and so each day they have to approach him to see to take care of him and that is that's pretty difficult.
When you're dealing with another life and you are in a position of authority where you're able to help that person that the responsibility alone is kind of I would imagine it brings about more than a little bit of pressure.
How do you deal with that pressure?
Fortunately fortunately not with drugs and alcohol always a good thing no well fortunately I have this this wonderful wife I can and talk with and and colleagues uh we're we're talking a lot about situations talking talking to each other and and being open what it does to you I mean it breaks your heart and although the person this this patient in particular was dangerous really dangerous to others it is tragic to see a human being uh reduced or by by uh by such a suffering and and I think that's uh what uh what is uh one of the challenges uh certainly in forensic uh psychiatry is to uh to keep seeing the person uh yes the person uh was convicted uh had done uh uh most of the time something uh something awful uh but are also in in some way uh a victim to uh a mental illness and you hope uh that to to help them in such a way that that uh at one point they can return in a safe way to to to back to society over the years have you found it easier to distance yourself from the situations and your patients or have you found you yourself becoming more empathetic I think the latter I'm very wary of becoming callous to to this these kinds of situations and one of my first jobs was was an intensive care unit in uh in a general hospital and I worked there and it was also for me it was I saw daily these people lying there on tubes and and with all the machinery around it and it it becomes it it becomes part of of of the furniture almost because it's it's your daily and and a part of it it's it's also a good thing that you're not constantly aware of where you are and and that you're swept away by it but each time relatives visited um patient I I saw how they looked at their their relative how they looked at the patient and and also certainly when they came for the first time the the sometimes the shock in their face that there were so many tubes and lines and and whatever that it that was a the day that those visitors in this situation was a was a great lesson for me to say well I I should very much take care of of not becoming insensitive about this.
And I know unfortunately there there will be colleagues that that cope in that way.
Yeah and I I know that it is a a common conception that as people get older their world does tend to collapse and become a lot smaller and as a result they can become embittered but maybe it's just this particular stage of life that I find myself in but over the years I have definitely found myself becoming more empathetic to others than the opposite and that's actually been a rather surprising event to me and I I believe it it lets your world grow yeah absolutely you're not worried about telling people to get off your lawn you're rather wondering why are they there to begin with exactly exactly and that's what I love about your your podcast and and the interviews you you have here you have this this way of interviewing that people really can tell their stories and you're being non-judgmental about it.
Yeah because I mean I I will be honest I've never thought very highly that I am the authority in any particular thing besides maybe a really strange language that very few people know and that has very little bearing upon the real world so I'm not particularly you know hum uh influenced by all that but and I guess the last thing that I really wanted to ask you is have you ever encountered anything that you would consider to be paranormal or at least unexplained in nature?
Well whether it's part of your job or not I mean it can be just any well it's a bit more in a in a personal sense perhaps and if if it's I don't know if it has been paranormal but or not but I've had some very when I was younger a child I've had some very very uh vivid dreams or experiences.
I will I would be lying in my bed and I was not aware that I had gone to sleep but I had no control over my body so I I stepped out of bed I knew I didn't want to but I stepped out of bed out of my bedroom it it was pretty dark and went into the hallway and it was a pr a pretty long hallway and at the end was was another room with with with laundry for the laundry in it and I would hide there and I could see one of the doors going outside to the backyard and it had yellow it had glass with a bit of air in it.
It was bowly and behind it there was this this tube light that w was shining there but I would I would see this figure appear and it was a a figure and and it this sounds bizarre but it it had something on its head a hat kind of thing and and I was I think about six seven years old and only later I heard about the the hat people or men oh yeah the hat man so and and I tried and it would just stand there and after a while it would go away but and I would return to my bed and and it finished and it ended once again I was a uh I was lying in bed and I woke up and it only ended I I was somehow lucid in my dream or I had some uh agency of my body and I started praying and the dream it it stopped there so I never had this this kind of dream again so that was also particular well a coincidence or something so you tell me JJ because you you're more uh of an authority on this field than I am no that is interesting yeah I've I've heard what and watched numerous documentaries and heard plenty of stories about shadow people and hatman and possible explanations of you know things in our peripheral vision can often skew things one way or the other or but I've had a lot of those types of dreams where I don't know if I'm awake or I'm not and I have encountered something horribly wrong and whether it's real or not I can't tell you for sure but I can say that it definitely has left an extremely lasting impression to the point where I I'm pretty sure I definitely encountered something horrible and I don't know what it is.
So I wish I had an answer to that and I will be the first to tell you that I absolutely do not were there any other because I know that you had written a few things and currently my eyesight is playing some tricks on me today.
Were there any other topics that you wanted to cover while we were speaking today I know you talked about language and use of term terminology yeah and other different different subjects I was also thinking about about the the in the situation with Nefarious I was also thinking and and and my experiences in in the forensic I was also thinking about the the topic of evil the preternatural evil and and the mundane evil and the latter I have quite some experience in it so but that might be a very uh elaborate oh no I I would love to get into that because I I'll tell you at least my rudimentary thoughts on it and then I would love to get your reaction and what your much more informed opinion would be where to me human evil is primarily based around either pure ignorance or pure selfishness where you're either focused on your own needs or you are absolutely unaware of the consequences of your actions whereas to me evil writ large is much more you're fully aware of what the consequences will be and you know that these actions will lead to horrific harm and that is your that that's your goal that's your aim it is to inflict as much pain and suffering as humanly possible rather than just being unaware that it will cause this what are your thoughts on that how do you react to that and have you ever encountered something which you think goes beyond just pure mortal evil well I've seen I've spoken to a lot of people who committed evil acts or committed bad bad stuff and which I call evil and there is this psychiatrist who also wrote his name was let's see he wrote People of the Lie uh Scott Peck you know him I don't know.
He is a psychiatrist as well and he wrote about he helped also in in in exorcisms or he he even did some exorcisms and he pleaded for a a a definition uh a diagnosis uh evil as a diagnosis that's something I well I can't I don't see any addition for for for the field I work in to to to label a person as being evil. Right.
But the evil I mean that wouldn't that would almost be admitting that there is zero chance of redemption of that individual.
Exactly it's a it's a very normative label and I think it does not not it will not help at least not our field to to label as something some uh as someone as evil and but the crimes that uh I have I've uh heard of of horrific crimes uh they've done and what you say well there these crimes were often not done out of ignorance it was really some were in a state of of psychosis that they thought their their spouse was replaced by by a reptilian or something or or they were really psychotic. Right.
But I've met um and I find it difficult to talk about this, but because there's there are not many and if you're trying to talking about real what what for me came closest to to real feeling real evil was this man and he he really got under my skin and it was a man who was convicted of abuse with his with his children. Oh gosh. And he had he was married, got children, killed abused them, got divorced, went to an had another relationship, married again, had children and he abused them again systematically.
And he was uh I I talked to him and he was telling me that he was a different person because well he was uh into Christ and he was uh redeemed and all that but he was also very angry uh at his spouse because she had informed the newspaper about what he had done and he was so angry about that he told me I I asked him well you had two marriages two two families and and both families your children you why why did you do this because I can't I can't imagine why someone would do something like this.
Yeah and I said he said well I was married I say well there there are different ways to to to if you but not your children I mean you pornography there is everything it's prostitutes not that I don't want to condone that but why your children well he said well I couldn't go to prostitute I couldn't go pornography because well I'm married and you can't do these things if you're married and it baffled me and I was I was really speechless after he he told me this with he wasn't joking he wasn't he was that serious about this and I would be baffled too well in the end I was not able because my my daughter she's ten now so it's quite some time ago but she she was just she was just born and I felt I can't help this man.
I can't there was a time that I wouldn't see myself able to kill someone but after my daughter was born I think that changed absolutely I wasn't able to help this man and asked a more experienced he was a kind of mentor uh to me experienced psychiatrist and and he took took over and he later we talked later a few years later uh we talked about this man and and he said well I've had the same problems as you did and this man I was was in where he was in this high security facility had been able to to smuggle and get his hands on extreme pornography so he I I think he won't see the outsides of a facility again.
I hope not at least I I would pray so especially if he can be kept away from children that would be for the best for everyone involved I would believe yeah and I'll throw away the key yeah well this is perhaps a bit too dark for no no no I mean this is unfortunately this is the reality of our world and uh to be able to discuss these types of things while I'm definitely not into true crime or anything similar to that I mean these things happen and I mean that I mean really when we are dealing with the topic of spiritual warfare this type of darkness is exactly what we are fending against not saying that you know people normally have these types of urges but that they happen and to pretend like they don't is just to be a willing participant in ignorance and ignorance is the absolute last thing that I would advocate in any given situation.
Yeah I I agree yeah I I agree uh JJ and also the instrumentality it the the and this was more common what what I encountered often was was that the victim was just viewed as an instrument instrument to one's own gains or lust or whatever an instrument to to cope with with uh uh someone's own pain and mental pain or whatever and I think there is and and that's something when talking about evil I think also I I'll also look inside of myself and we've I don't know if you you do you know Carlyskers?
Yes yeah okay and the German philosopher and psychiatrist and he said or he wrote you cannot fully understand the other you cannot fully know the other and perhaps we cannot fully know ourselves and there lies a a little seed of of potential evil in it or potential wrongdoing because we we at at the point that we we cannot see the other as a person and be aware of it that the other is a person and and with mental processes and and and feelings and all greater than life itself then we run at risks to make the other something less in our mind.
And that's now we're getting to the language part of it because in here in in Holland we are and I I'm I'm not sure if it's in other in other countries as well but at least in in our mental health uh institutions managers tend to talk about production and and with productions they mean the time you spend together with a patient in a room helping a patient and they call this production and they will address the healthcare people work that they have to increase their production or make sure their production is in order to get enough money.
And there's a a bit of a cynism in this because at the point that you're talking about production the the view I have uh in my mind is about a factory when you stand behind a some sort of a conveyor belt or trying to produce as much goods as possible. Right exactly and it it annoys me or it it really it pains me as well that this kind of language is being used in a in a context where it is adamant that we really try to understand the other and to understand uh their problems and not view them as production or whatever but as people as persons.
Yeah because I would imagine that you're dealing with an individual's life and how they think and how they perceive the world it's not something in which a questionnaire is going to be able to give you ready-made answers for no and actually the that's one other thing I wanted to ask you about you know the first time that I ever read and I think it was in his book Stephen King's It where he described an individual who had zero empathy it was a person who just could not understand that other people were people the only thing that mattered to this boy was himself and that's the only thing that they understood right and that was a revelation to me I'm like there really could be individuals like that and then just even more minutely people that have aphasia where they cannot pick you know have mental images of whatever they are talking about they can just kind of conceptualize words but there's no imagery that goes with that.
I mean there can be some truly fundamental differences between individuals. I mean do you have any other examples of kind of like fundamental differences that you have encountered and you know how I know we like to think that because we're all humans we have the same kind of circuitry or at least basic understanding of the world but the more that I've seen I think there's a a phenomenal amount of nuance to that and variability.
Yeah perhaps that's I'm trying to to think of an example because what you were telling me there's the the the inability to to feel empathy and to well of course I've spoken to persons uh in in inside the facility in the in the mental hospital as well that they are although they they have been convicted of of uh it was this person in particular he has been he had been convicted but of killing a very young child four years old five years old and he he had stabbed him uh with a knife and he kept on saying to me well no I uh it wasn't it wasn't murder it was um manslaughter I think it was it was uh it was an accident because he he walked right up to me and although proof told different but he was not either he was not capable of seeing himself as being this who committed who took a life he wasn't able to cope with it or he really was completely conv at least he was really convinced he it was an accident.
I asked him what are you what were you doing in in a school because it was in a school with a knife where you had nothing you had nothing to do there and he well he couldn't answer me but but there was no feeling of remorse or there was no sense of I hurt the other or it was very egoistic egocentric he it was unfair that he was now confined and he had no notion in his head of what what it would be for the for the parents of this boy or none whatsoever and this is what what I encountered a regular on a regular basis.
Sometimes well I spoke with people who were mentally how you say with with with real intelligence but in this case that was so intelligence doesn't have uh has not something to do with this this was a complete lack of of uh humanity only that's also a a very dangerous thing to say because if I say it it wasn't human to do or it was a lack of humanity I I would like to separate him in from what we are as as as as a species or as humans and this is so this is so I don't want to dissociate him from from what what we are and that is shocking that this is also human nature. Right.
Yeah and I would say maybe that is a defining characteristic of human versus pertinatural evil where in human evil yeah the acts can be absolutely atrocious whether on an individual or I mean in the in the case of World War II a genocidal you know scale however I think to the person who has committed those atrocities they are still the hero of their story you know they can only see the world through their eyes so whether they have placed greater import upon their own needs and desires or the fact that they can rationalize away whatever happened to make so that they are not the bad person, then that is still a defining characteristic.
However, if you knew that yes there are other people with as valid of opinions and feelings and perspectives as I and yet I am still going to go around and cause this not for a cause but just to do it. That is have uh I couldn't even imagine running into something as sinister and evil as what that might be.
It's a real sadism is is exactly yeah that the those people the they they thrive in in the pain and the suffering of others not because they don't feel the pain and know about the pain they know they do something that hurts the other and that that thrills them and that makes them tick.
Well I think at some further point because I would like to get into the nuances of language at some point whether it is you know Wittgenstein's language games or just postmodernism in general I I think that we can have a really amazing conversation around that. But unfortunately we are out of time for today Mr. Burt this is his second ever at least to my knowledge podcast appearance he was actually first on Victor's trailer Trash Tarrus and that is an amazing episode if you have not listened to that or to that podcast in general highly recommend you to do that.
But yeah this is a Vert's uh second appearance is there any particular site or media that you want to to sponsor or to advocate for that in which you appear on uh no i i I don't know what what for because you have mostly um american listeners so I'm I'm not oh and that that's fine that that's no problem at all but thank you very much for sharing your expertise your experience it has been a highly illuminating conversation at least from my perspective and I cannot thank you enough for your time uh you're more uh than welcome thank you for listening to Southern Demonology find us online at southerndemonology.
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